Thank you to all that responded. My request for member experiences with
future shipping dates yielded several responses and URLs.
Sites submitted by members include:
www.harryanddavid.com
www.hallmark.com
www.bluemountain.com
Suggestions and experiences touched on numerous usability issues.
1) Allowing the user to choose the date a product arrives, rather than the
date shipped is preferred. However, this is fraught with Inventory,
Fulfillment and Customer Service issues. The responses below illustrates
this point:
------------------------------------------------
I have yet to see an ecommerce inventory or fulfillment system
that can handle the complexities of this.
Some of the major issues are:
1. Inventory ("ship when avail" is different than "hold until")
2. Shipping method and pricing (especially if you ship internationally)
3. Guaranteeing delivery (no one can really do this for the prices
people seem willing to pay)
4. Customer service (how do you answer questions and expedite?)
Amazon is a good example - they have two settings: "ship as available"
and "ship together". But the option I always want is "ship part now and
part
later" but now that I've worked on some systems I've quit complaining
about their not offering that option--it is a nightmare.
------------------------------------------------
I used to work at an electronics e-commerce company and we had several
talks
about providing this kind of funtionality. Besides the interface issues
(which I think would be relatively easy to solve), there were a couple of
other problems that prevented us from introducing such a feature.
First, how far in the future do you let them select the date to ship? We
did not want to get in a situation where we were running a layaway program.
That is, we didn't want to hold products that were specifically dedicated
to
a person for any length of time. We had to pay for the inventory, but we
couldn't charge the person until we actually sent them the product. That
could result in serious cash-flow problems.
Second, I think people really want to set a date when they want the product
to arrive, not the date the product is shipped. They want it to arrive on
someone's birthday, anniversary, or other special date. And because
delivery is handled by a third party, companies cannot guarantee an arrival
date.
------------------------------------------------
http://www.harryanddavid.com
Multitudes of delayed shipping options, and YES, I actually have paid
very high fees to have it arrive on the exact day I asked for. They've
gotten it right every time.
------------------------------------------------
Funny thing regarding future shipping dates. I was ordering several items
from Land's End awhile back using their 800 number. Since my wife and I
were going to be out of town for a long weekend, so I asked if they could
delay shipping the items for a few days. The response from the person
taking my order over the phone was something like "Oh, we'll just send them
US Mail rather than UPS. That will make sure they get there after you
return."
------------------------------------------------
Haven't seen it -- although it's a feature I'd definitely like to see. My
monitor was dying and I wanted to order it before the CHI conference, but
none of the vendors would let me set a ship date, nor did I want it to be
returned because I couldn't pick it up from UPS in time. Sure enough, the
monitor died the day I got back... Likewise, a few months ago wanted to
order a Dell 'cuz they were offering a special, but couldn't because I'd be
on the road when it would've arrived.
You might check Dell's site, they do a really good job on their check-out
(for example, it's the first site I've seen that lets you use multiple
credit cards), although I don't recall seeing that feature. It's certainly
not obvious on the product page, but it's possible its in the check-out
sequence.
It would be really easy to implement in a Dell-esque manner -- another good
thing they do is keeping the interface simple for the majority of people
who do routine transactions, but there's usually an option for more complex
transactions tucked off to the side.
It would also be interesting to know how common it is for company to offer
delay shipping in the brick-and-morter world.
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
2) Cost concerns and user acceptance issues were mentioned as well:
------------------------------------------------
> http://www.harryanddavid.com
>
> Multitudes of delayed shipping options, and YES, I actually have paid
> very high fees to have it arrive on the exact day I asked for.
Thanks for the link--hadn't seen it before, and it looks very well done.
But I tried three different shipping methods to get the item ($32) to me
by easter (three days away) and the shipping cost varied by $25.
I'm not sure that it is worth paying 115% of the product price to ship it
by the most expensive method.
But thier checkout looks well done--with some nice logic checking.
------------------------------------------------
>I'm not sure that it is worth paying 115% of the product price to ship
it
>by the most expensive method.
Oh, I agree...it's not cheap. There are instances where users have
really critical needs for arrival times, and are willing to pay the
price. I've paid shipping charges higher than the cost of the item
before. I've utilized them for corporate gifts many times around the
holidays.
Yep, there are folks like me who simply wait too long to take care of
their gift-giving, and will pay anything for the recipient to get it on
time. (chuckle).
The nice part of the Harry And David process is that when you are
actually shopping way ahead of time, you can delay the shipment process
a great deal, and schedule delivery weeks or months ahead of time. This
is a great feature for coporate gift purchasing (I've utilized it
often), as well as busy people who like to take care of things ahead of
time. H&D are the only site I've come across yet who allows specific
delay times for shipping.
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
3) Some saw my request for future dating information as a variation on the
"Saved Items/Wish List/Pre-order" solutions some sites provide. Here are
those responses:
------------------------------------------------
This is a great way to maintain a list of items that you want, but which
you can't afford at the moment or don't want to buy "right now" for
whatever reason (interruptions, etc). I find it annoying when I find
something I want to buy -- but can't buy it right away -- and have no
convenient way to remember these things. It's a perpetual "wish list" of
sorts. I bet it promotes repeat business, as well ...
------------------------------------------------
I live by my Amazon wish list. I use it to find birthday gifts and
holidays, for reference when I'm shopping for DVDs on eBay, and to
remind myself of upcoming new releases. Not all of my wish list items
are things I plan to buy at Amazon, but often times I end up placing an
order and adding wish list items to take advantage of combined shipping,
when I'd have probably forgotten about the item otherwise. It's one of
the best features they've added.
------------------------------------------------
When I was at CDnow in the early days, we implemented an advance order
system for new album releases that was incredibly successful. More
recently, Apple just did this with Mac OS X. Although these examples are a
bit different than what you are talking about, it does point
towards the need for such features. In your case, it might be directed
more towards helping users then they are planning to go on vacation or
want to schedule a shipment in advance for a birthday.
In fact, I think prompting users on how they might use the feature -
i.e. preorder for a birthday or wedding anniversary - is probably the
smart way to approach this type of feature. Otherwise, some users might be
left in the dark as to why they would use it.
As for sites, take a look at greeting card sites (if they are still in
business)... Also, most retail sites have advance ordering.
http://hallmark.comhttp://bluemountain.com
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
EDITOR'S NOTE AND DISCLAIMER: I found this last post amusing, since I, the
originator of the question, work for Hallmark.com. We are definitely still
in business, and thriving, I might add!
Contrary to the post, Hallmark.com only offers future DELIVERY of our
flowers on the site. Because these are only sent FedEx, they are the
exception to the rule within our product offerings.
- - -
Regards,
Melinda Morris-Black
Requirements, Analysis and Design
Hallmark.com
816.701.1614
Mobile 816.651.7064
[log in to unmask]
---------------------------------------------------------
About CHI-WEB: http://www.acm.org/sigchi/web/chi-web.html
---------------------------------------------------------